Friends at School
by Queenbean3
Summary: A brief glimpse at Coraline's new school life.


Friends at School

Coraline's new school was much the same as her old school. It was the same size, the same color, even the same smell of chalk dust. The only difference was that everyone wore the same gray uniforms.

On the first day her homeroom teacher had her stand up and introduced her to the rest of the class. She got her name wrong, as adults always did. "Children, this is Caroline Jones. Why don't you tell us a bit about yourself, Miss Jones?"

Coraline frowned a bit but she complied. "I live with my parents in the Pink Palace Apartments. We have some funny neighbors there. Wybie lives next door to us."

The curly haired boy suddenly found himself the focus of all his classmates' eyes. He smiled plastically and sank down a bit in his seat.

"That's very nice, Miss Jones." the teacher said. "I'm sure you'll make lots of new friends here. You may sit now. It's time for class to begin."

Coraline sat down in her chair, noting that the plastic seat felt as hard and cold as the ones in her old homeroom class. As the teacher began the lesson, she noticed a few of her new classmates still looking at her. They looked away and pretended not to be looking.

As they days went by, Coraline became grateful to have Wybie in most of her classes. He was the only person in school that she knew and without him she would have been rather lost. Wybie told her which teachers were easy or hard, which kids were nice or mean, and which cafeteria foods were edible or not.

Coraline's homeroom teacher, Miss Perkins, was one of the easy teachers. She rarely scolded her students when they misbehaved, which was a problem because most of her students were mean ones. Coraline hadn't quite believed Wybie when he warned her about them until one morning when she tried to get up from her seat but was stuck there by a sticky piece of chewed bubblegum.

The gum itself didn't bother her. It was the prospect of showing it to her mother on the brand new, expensive uniform skirt that did. She wished Wybie were here to ask for advice but this was one of the few periods they did not share. There was no one else in the class she knew well enough to turn to for help, either. She was on her own this time.

As Coraline considered the possibility of secretly swapping skirts with someone else in gym, a voice came from behind her. It was so quiet that she barely heard it over the noise of the other students chattering.

She heard it again. It came from a small, mousy girl seated at the desk behind her. Half her face was hidden behind the class's textbook. The other half was covered by frizzy brown hair and smudged glasses. "Did you say something?" Coraline asked.

The mousy girl replied in the same whispery mutter.

"What?"

The mousy girl cleared her throat and lowered her book slightly. "Hot water and a toothbrush."

Coraline stared blankly at the girl.

"For the gum." she said, just barely loud enough to be heard. "To get it out."

"Oh." Coraline said.

She kept looking at the mousy girl, trying to remember what her name was. It had been two weeks since they had shared history class, but Coraline only knew she was there from the times the teacher called on her and she heard a whispery reply behind her back. Her answers were always right, although extremely timid.

Finally Coraline gave up trying to remember who the girl was and decided to ask straight out. "What's your name?"

The mousy girl blinked her plain gray eyes, as though no one had ever asked her that question before. A few seconds later she replied, her frail tone more stammering than before. "It's … It's Holly… Holly Higginbottom."

Coraline kicked herself mentally for forgetting such a ridiculously embarrassing name, and pitied the girl for having it. Her own name was troublesome at times, but it was nothing like having the last name Higginbottom. It was annoying, but it didn't make her an easy target for rude jokes.

"Thanks for the tip, Holly. I'll try it out." Coraline leaned over the back of her chair, eyes narrowing slightly. "Hey, did you see who put that gum on my chair?"

Holly's pale face went paler. She shook her head, long bangs falling over her glasses.

"Come on. You must've seen something. Don't worry, I won't tattle if you tell me."

Holly glanced around the room, then pulled up her textbook like a shield and leaned closer, voice so quiet that Coraline had to cup a hand around her ear to hear it. "There was a girl … She had curly hair, and smelled like bologna."

Coraline frowned pensively, trying to think of any people that matched that description. She didn't get to ask Holly, though, because the mousy girl quickly hid behind her book entirely and said nothing at all. Then the teacher Mr. Marpole called the class to order and told them to turn their textbooks to the chapter about the Civil War. Coraline tried to pay attention to the lesson, but her mind was still occupied with thoughts of chewed up bubblegum, toothbrushes, embarrassing surnames, and bologna.

The next period was lunch. Coraline found Wybie in his usual corner of the cafeteria. He was already eating his tuna sandwich when she joined him. "Hey, Jonesy! How was history?"

"The usual. Except for this." She turned to let him see the gum on the back of her skirt.

Wybie winced. He swallowed the food in his mouth before speaking again. "Ooh, not good. Gum is really tough to wash out of these uniforms."

Coraline placed a napkin on her chair to keep from sticking to it. "Have you tried using hot water and a toothbrush? The girl behind me in History says it's the only thing that works."

"Really? Huh, I never thought of that. Gramma always uses hot vinegar, but then it gets my clothes all stinky. Who was the girl who told you this, anyway?"

"Her name is Holly." Coraline said. She left out the girl's last name out of courtesy. "I think she saw who put the gum on my chair, but she wouldn't say who."

"Must be one of the mean kids." Wybie said. "You're new here, so they're testing you, trying to see what it'll take to make you scared of them. That's what they do to everybody."

"Gum doesn't scare me." Coraline said, punching her straw into her milk carton. "Mean kids don't, either. Compared to the bullies in Pontiac this is baby stuff."

Wybie believed it. If Coraline was tough enough to defeat an evil witch from another world, Pontiac bullies must be a large and hostile breed compared to the Ashland variety. He took another bite from his sandwich, imaging Coraline using theatrical karate moves to beat up huge mutant apes wearing T-shirts and jeans.

"Hey, Wybie. Do you know any blonde girls who smell like bologna?"

He blinked back to reality and stared at his friend in confusion. "What?"

"That's all Holly would tell me about the gum kid. She was too scared to say anything else."

Wybie tilted his head almost completely sideways as he thought. "There's this one girl in my gym class like that, she always aims for me when we play dodge ball. Her mom makes her eat bologna sandwiches for lunch all the time, says they make her stronger, not like she needs it."

Coraline decided to cut in before Wybie's rambling got too long. "What's her name?"

"Sharon." he blurted out. Then he paused and looked at her again. "Jonesy, tell me you're not thinking of tracking her down. Please, please tell me you're not gonna do anything that crazy."

"Why not? I'm just sticking up for myself. You should try it sometime, Wyborn."

Wybie's face became increasingly worried. He glanced around the cafeteria and leaned over his meal. "You don't get it, Jonesy! This girl's a cross between a vampire and a werewolf! And she's got buddies! If you stand up to her they'll squish you like a bug!"

Coraline gave him a disbelieving look. If she were sitting close enough to him she would have punched his shoulder. Instead she flicked her rolled up straw wrapper at his forehead. "Yeah, right. She can't be any worse than the _real_ monsters I've dealt with. What's the worst a dumb bully could do? Give me a few bruises?"

She sipped her milk calmly. Wybie sighed and shook his head. He should have known by now that trying to change Coraline's mind was like trying to make Mt. Everest slide two inches to the left just by sneezing on it. Both were an exercise in futility, although one might actually work if one had the breath powers of Superman.

After finishing her lunch, Coraline ordered Wybie to show her where Sharon spent her lunch hour. Wybie obeyed reluctantly. They went to the blacktop, but no one there had seen her. They went back inside and headed for the gym when Coraline heard a very familiar wispy voice whimpering in the hall. It was Holly Higginbottom, backed up against the wall of lockers and surrounded by three taller kids. They consisted of two boys and one girl. The girl was the tallest of them but she did not try to slouch to reduce her extra inches. Her hair was a thick, tangled mass of dishwater blonde, like she'd gotten a very bad perm and tried to brush it straight again. The two boys looked about the same height, except one was lanky and the other was stocky.

Wybie yanked Coraline behind a corner to hide, but she peered around to watch anyway. The tall blonde girl with the bad perm, who appeared to be the leader and was speaking very rudely to the timid Holly, was no doubt Sharon. Lanky and Stocky were behind her, serving as little more than intimidating scenery. "You ratted us out, didn't you?" Sharon was saying. "I saw you talking to that new girl in History. Don't try to deny it!"

Holly sputtered weakly in an attempt to protest, but Sharong was already talking again. "Listen up, Pig Bottom. We had a deal. You do my homework and keep quiet like a good little mouse, and I don't let the boys beat you up. But since you broke your promise, I don't have to keep mine." She gestured to the boys, who grinned wickedly and advanced on the tiny girl. They dwarfed her by a foot and a half and blocked any path of escape she could have taken. Holly tried to scream, but it only came out as a shrill squeak.

This was all Coraline could stand. Annoyed as she was about the gum on her skirt, she felt downright angry now. Perhaps it was because Holly was the first kid besides Wybie to speak to her at her new school. Perhaps it was an inborn sense of justice. Perhaps it was the corndog she had for lunch. Whatever it was, it drove Coraline to ignore Wybie's hushed warning, stomp out to the middle of the hall, prop her fists on her hips and shout. "Hey! What do you jerk wads think you're doing?"

The trio of bullies looked confused. Holly looked absolutely shocked. Wybie smacked his forehead and began praying.

"What do you think _you're_ doing, new kid?" Sharon snapped. "Coming to rescue your little rat friend?"

"_You're_ the one who's a rat!" Coraline retorted. She began stomping toward the group, her footsteps punctuating her angry words. "Some tough bullies you are, picking on someone smaller then you! Are you too wimpy to pick on bigger kids?"

The boys didn't answer. They were too surprised that this tiny female was not cowering against the lockers like the other one. Sharon pushed past them both and gave her a push. "Shut it, Dye Job." the tall girl sneered. "If you don't like what we're doing, go home and cry to your mommy."

She then shoved Coraline hard and knocked her down on her rear. This caused the thugs to start laughing raucously. Holly's face twisted into an expression of terror. Wybie peeked from his hiding place, not knowing what to do. Coraline should have been scared then. She should have run away to the girl's bathroom, locked herself in a stall and cried into a wad of toilet paper. This was what the tall girl and her cronies were expecting.

But Coraline didn't do that. There was nothing about these big, obnoxious kids that was scarier than what she had faced in the other world. The only way they could have scared her was if they had black button eyes, but they didn't.

So instead of getting scared, Coraline got angry. So angry that she didn't stop to think about how outmatched and outnumbered she was. In one move she picked herself up, balled her fists, and delivered a left-hand punch to Sharon's stomach.

Sharon gasped and doubled over. The other kids watching held their breath, waiting to see what would happen next. For an instant Coraline thought she had won, but out of nowhere, a bony fist came crashing against her ribs. Again she hit the floor, this time with a much larger girl clawing at her eyes and shrieking like a banshee.

It took all of Coraline's strength just to keep the girl's nails away from her face, so much that she couldn't move to get away. Her mind raced for a solution to this disaster when suddenly a half-eaten slice of pizza smacked the angry bully in her face.

It was Wybie, standing in the hall with a trash can at his side. He flung a handful of mashed potatoes into the girl's frizzy hair. She screamed again. Her thugs took this as a command and charged at Wybie. The smaller boy flung even more garbage at them but it didn't slow them down for a moment. Before he knew it he had two big gorillas pinning him to the floor.

While her attacker was distracted, Coraline got up and noticed that Holly was nowhere in sight. She must have escaped when she wasn't looking. It was better that way, she thought. There was no way a timid little thing like her could possibly do anything to help the situation. Wybie needed her now, so Coraline abandoned the female bully and began kicking the two boys as hard as she could. But then Sharon grabbed her from behind and held her in a headlock, cutting off her air supply.

And then something totally unexpected happened.

A whistle blew, heralding the presence of two gym teachers and the vice principal. The bullies had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Neither did Wybie and Coraline. All five of them were marched straight to the principal's office, but not before a slight detour at the nurse's office.

Coraline received a few band-aids and some antiseptic, but was otherwise unharmed. Wybie was in similar condition. The whole time they waited with their stone faced chaperones they wondered what their sentence would be. Wybie wrung and twisted his hands knowing what fate awaited him at home. Coraline expected to be grounded until her college graduation. Finally the three bullies filed out of the office and were escorted to the detention hall. It was Coraline and Wybie's turn to face the music. The principal was on the phone with one of the other students' parents when they entered his office. The room looked a lot like the classrooms except for the more expensive furnishings.

The principal motioned for them to sit down. Coraline put her hand under her rear to keep the sticky spot on her skirt from ruining the upholstery and getting her into more trouble. Wybie had moved from twisting his hands to fretfully wringing the already rumpled knees of his uniform pants.

When the principal hung up the phone he looked at the two children. Then he noticed what Wybie was doing. "You can stop that, Mr. Lovat. This isn't as bad as you think it is."

"It's not?" the boy said, blinking in shock. "You aren't gonna expel me and call my Gramma?"

"Oh, I will call your grandmother, Mr. Lovat. But you don't need to worry about being expelled. I looked at your records, and except for a certain chemistry experiment we won't name, it's all clean."

The man turned his attention on Coraline, whose posture went stiff as a board. "Well, Miss Jones. You certainly know how to make an impression, don't you? Lucky for you, I have it on good authority that you weren't the one who started the fight."

It was her turn to be surprised this time. "You do?"

He grunted with a nod. "You're new here, Miss Jones, so I'll let you off with a warning this time. I'll call your parents and explain things to them."

And that was that.

Coraline tried the toothbrush and hot water trick that evening to clean her skirt. Sure enough, it worked. She wore it the next day to school.

In history class she noticed that Holly's seat was empty, but there was a small piece of notepaper on her chair. When she unfolded it there was a single word written in small, mousy handwriting; _Thanks._

**The End**


End file.
